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The Cyprus Institute Highlights in the 2nd CSP4Climate Conference the Importance of the Usage of Solar Energy to Tackle Climate Change

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The Cyprus Institute (CyI) hosted the 2nd CSP4Climate International Conference entitled The Decarbonisation of the Energy Sector in the Mediterranean and Middle East – The Role of CSP. This year's International Conference took place online from 15th-17th of December 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic exceptional circumstances.

CSP4Climate Conference was held within the framework of “Cyprus Solar Thermal Energy Chair for the Eastern Mediterranean (CySTEM – Chair) project” funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the EU. The conference was open to the public and could be live-streamed attended via The Cyprus Institute’s YouTube channel (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3) or CyI’s Facebook page and via GoToWebinar platform.

More than 450 participants who attended this online conference had the opportunity to watch researchers and experts presenting their latest findings regarding the usage of solar energy as a way to tackle the Climate Change and its concequences. Experts made clear that Climate Change is manifesting itself in an especially threatening manner for the Eastern Mediterranean - Middle East region. Robust model predict the ions forecast extreme climate stresses for this area, home to a population in excess of 350 million. Extreme weather events, desertification and health risks pose a serious theat of the well being, or even the survival of human beings in the region.

Additionally, energy experts, mostly specialists in solar thermal technologies, presented and discussed the main characteristics of solar energy - in particular of Concentrated Solar Power technologies, and debated how these technologies can be engaged to play an enabling role in the necessary transition towards a much more Renewable Energy world energy system, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean region and Middle East where direct solar radiation is abundant.

The Conference was preceded by the CySTEM webinar entitled “CySTEM ERA Chair Project Results” which held online on 14th of December 2020. In this webinar, the different achievements of CySTEM ERA Chair project were presented and discussed, paying particular attention to the positive impacts that it has achieved at The Cyprus Insitute both at the institutional and scientific levels, the enhancement of experimental capabilities in the CSP domain, as well as the expansion of those capabilities to other renewable energy, energy storage and smart-grid technologies.